Here’s what happened in tech last week: The decline of personal vehicles, a new unicorn, and more

In cities around the world, young people are opting for bikes and ridesharing services over owning an automobile. And with the swelling wave of the self-driving car very much on the horizon, it’s really only a matter of time before there isn’t a single whip left to ghost-ride.

Last week, there were three big stories about old guard car companies getting in bed with tech. Google and Fiat Chrysler are reportedly going to collaborate on a self-driving minivan. General Motors is teaming up with Lyft to get started on testing self-driving cabs on roads within the year.

Perhaps the most eyebrow raising news was Pivotal’s sizeable $258 million Series C funding round led by Ford. The round, which puts the “mobility software” company’s valuation at $2.8 billion, included investments from Microsoft, EMC, VMware, and General Electric.

At Index we gather tech coverage into one platform for tech enthusiasts to keep up with the news and access that data. In this series, we fill you in at the start of every week on what’s been happening in tech.

A look at the big picture

In the past week, Index logged 247 funding events from 31 different countries. The top 10 countries from North America and Europe in terms of number of rounds can be seen below:

North America

This week in North America there were 149 investments made at a total of $1.72 billion in capital deployment.

Besides the impressive investment into Pivotal mentioned above, education app company Age of Learning also received an impressive $150 million round, earning it a place among the unicorns with a $1 billion valuation. Check out the breakdown in series in North America below:

A look back

In this section we look back at the past eight weeks and compare Angel and Seed level rounds, and Series A rounds in both regions. The charts show the fluctuations in average capital volume of the rounds.